


satellite

by paracyane



Category: World Trigger
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon, forms of competition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-13 19:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9137845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paracyane/pseuds/paracyane
Summary: Cornering Jin was a hobby that Tachikawa cultivated over his years at Border, fueled initially by the restless boredom that accompanied being unmatched by anyone in his age group, and the rebellious impulses that his sixteen year old self had not yet been able to curb.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaiosea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaiosea/gifts).



> kai!!! thank you so much for introducing me to world trigger, it really made my year!! i just checked and this is the fourth fic i've written for you and i hope i'll be able to write many many more as long as you'll have them!! i didn't originally plan to write this pairing but then i accidentally got sucked in... oops. anyway i hope you enjoy this and i really had fun writing for you as always :D

#

Cornering Jin was a hobby that Tachikawa cultivated over his years at Border, fueled initially by the restless boredom that accompanied being unmatched by anyone in his age group, and the rebellious impulses that his sixteen year old self had not yet been able to curb. It became something more like _personal_ when Tachikawa wasn’t the one watching Jin’s trion body crack into a million tiny pieces; when there wasn’t anyone watching Jin’s trion body crack into a million tiny pieces.

Tachikawa made up for this like any sensible human would: he started second guessing every single one of Jin’s predictions, whether it be about how many seconds it would take for a new C-ranker to defeat the trion soldier during the initial test, or if Sawamura-san would be receptive to any form of flirting. Tachikawa had more wins when it came to the battlefield, but Jin was more clever than he appeared, something that tightened up all the muscles in Tachikawa’s stomach, the exact opposite of what it was like to press Jin back into the wall with his kogetsu and watch as Jin’s scorpion gave in before Jin was ready to.

So it didn’t provide the excitement Tachikawa had previously taken for granted.

Every time, Jin looked at him like he expected Tachikawa to storm away seething every time he lost. This was insulting, because it wasn’t like Tachikawa went entirely without losing. Shinoda-san had made sure of that. It was true: growing up, Tachikawa always gave himself more credit than his teachers did. To call it elation the first time he defeated Shinoda-san would be a too-light use of the word.

“It’s nine to one, Kei,” Shinoda-san had said, the trion of his arm already reforming. “Nine to _one_.”

Back then, the nine to one had been something that brought Tachikawa a fleeting flash of pride. Now, with Jin in front of him — next to him if he was lucky — it wasn’t anything near enough what he needed.

#

Unfortunately for Tachikawa, it occurred too late that Jin really only bet on things when the situation was something he could foresee with his side effect. The only solace of this was to keep it in the dark from Tachikawa for as long as possible, Jin didn’t say, “My side effect tells me so”, every time he won.

(Tachikawa made the mistake of calling him out on this, because then Jin switched over to saying it even when he didn’t use his side effect.)

#

For Tachikawa, it was only a matter of time before he also found out the game Jin was playing with himself. Jin always prefaced his actions with the kind of laugh Tachikawa only heard him do when one of the higher-ups was giving him a difficult time. He asked questions that he knew the answers to, then pushed his limits even though Tachikawa was certain Jin already knew that the answer wasn’t going to come.

“Why do you ask, then?” Tachikawa asked, after swallowing the last of the ice cream mochi that he’d found in the freezer a couple hours earlier. More than half of it had gone to calming Kunichika down after Izumi finally beat her high score in her favorite game. She’d thrown the controller across the room, Izumi ducking out of the operation room before she could get him. Since then, though, everyone had gone home. It was late, and Tachikawa rubbed his eyes before looking back up to see what kind of face Jin had on now.

Except before he could, Jin leaned over and kissed him. Tachikawa, too surprised to really do much, just let him until they weren’t anymore. Jin wasn’t in his trion body, which Tachikawa hadn’t known until right when Jin kissed him, because despite all of his positive qualities, Jin had a lot of not-so-positive qualities, one of which was that he always wore the same damn clothes.

Tachikawa stared at him, trying to figure out what the correct thing was to say in this situation.

Jin cleared his throat. “My side effect told me—”

“I’m going to cut you off right there,” Tachikawa interrupted, and grabbed the front of his shirt.

And so it went.

#

There were only a handful of things Tachikawa ever expected from Jin. This included an endless stream of supposedly witty comments, a couple predictions that would save Mikado City from utter destruction, and some vague, convoluted form of friendship. He never expected anything special.

As it turned out, Jin wasn’t good at being special. He spent too much time trying to take all the blame for himself, and it didn’t upset Tachikawa as much as it annoyed him. He looked at the way Jin came to HQ after walking around all day looking at people to see if there was a pending disaster looming above them. And yet, it was always Jin that gravitated towards him after meetings, to touch base about things that didn’t matter at all.

Tachikawa was aware of the fact that it shouldn’t really matter to him whether Jin had bags under his eyes or his hands seemed unable to stay still. But that was hard to keep in mind when Jin intercepted him when he was alone, only to leave marks where his clothes would cover up, to arch into Tachikawa’s hands exactly the way he always did things: they were calculated, deliberate moves.

“What do you want,” Tachikawa asked, the next time he could break away.

Jin sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, letting his teeth scrape over it as it slipped back out. He was watching Tachikawa watch his mouth. Tachikawa’s own mouth was too dry; even if Jin were to respond, Tachikawa probably wouldn’t have it in him to do the same.

Jin kissed him like he was waiting for Tachikawa to push back. This struck Tachikawa in all the wrong ways, but it was only because it was Jin that he tolerated it enough to relish the sting of Jin’s nails scraping his back through his shirt. There were things that Tachikawa noticed: Jin probably only was doing this because he was bored, which Tachikawa didn’t really care about because he was bored too. This was the only thing that really scorched his skin and left him out of breath like fighting Jin did. Swordplay was mostly a contact sport the way they did things, and Jin didn’t hesitate before pressing himself into Tachikawa’s body like he was starved for it. That was contact enough.

When he walked away, Tachikawa swallowed down the pit in his throat and felt the stick in his ribs break in two. Jin sounded like he was breathing easier, but Tachikawa didn’t forget the flush in his cheeks spreading down to his neck, spreading far out of Tachikawa’s reach.

#

In retrospect, Tachikawa shouldn’t have been so surprised by Jin, because of course if Jin was stolen away Tachikawa would go to take him back. It sounded stupid when the thing stealing Jin away was an inanimate object, off-limits to Tachikawa, but the first time Tachikawa had snuck under a caution tape was when he was seven years old. Jin was a much more rewarding prospect, and Tachikawa wasn’t seven anymore. He was much more reckless.

Tachikawa was reckless with Jin because a part of him already knew that Jin wouldn’t do something that would endanger either of their positions at Border. The Border had been Jin’s entire world for years.

Besides, it wasn’t like Jin wasn’t enjoying himself. Every time he pretended to be cornered by Tachikawa, Tachikawa was sure he’d been waiting for him to arrive. Every time he pretended to ask, _What are you doing here_ , he was kissing Tachikawa before the first three syllables were out of his mouth.

#

When Jin got back from an away mission, it took Tachikawa approximately fifteen minutes to find him after he finished talking to Kido-san and the others.

“You were waiting for me,” was Tachikawa’s first accusation.

“I knew you were coming,” was Jin’s rebuttal.

Tachikawa crossed his arms over his chest. They were in one of the rooms that would have been a bedroom, if there was any furniture in. “You didn’t tell me you were going on an away mission.”

Jin shrugged. “It was a secret.”

Everything was a secret around here. The way Jin tilted his head back against the wall to look at him set Tachikawa’s teeth on edge, rubbed him the wrong way. Jin always did this. Despite everything, Tachikawa thought he was starting to be able to predict what Jin was going to do, too. The one thing that Jin could always one-up Tachikawa on.

Jin didn’t need to know that the first week he was gone, Tachikawa didn’t sleep for days. He would’ve slept in class if Kazama didn’t walk by every couple minutes to keep an eye on him. It was annoying, how Jin always found ways and things and events that would steal him from Tachikawa. Tachikawa wasn’t about to admit it, but Jin had been successful in crawling under Tachikawa’s skin and making himself a home there, a home he could leave at any time and come back if he wanted to. If he felt like it.

It turned out, Jin didn’t always feel like it. Tachikawa kept this in mind when he kissed him, and didn’t apologize when the back of Jin’s head hit the wall from the unexpected force.

“Didn’t see that coming?” Tachikawa asked into Jin’s neck. He couldn’t see Jin’s face right then, but he imagined that it was something unimaginable, a territory completely unknown to Tachikawa.

Then: “Tachikawa-san.” When Tachikawa looked, the grin on Jin’s face was the same one Tachikawa saw in his dreams sometimes, the expression he made when there were two blades separating them, the faint glow of the weapons darkening the shadows of their faces. Tachikawa hadn’t properly looked at him in so long. He didn’t think about the periods of time Jin avoided him like the plague, only to return with a sheepish look on his face, not even an apology out his mouth before he was back in the space like sanity that no one occupied otherwise. Tachikawa already knew that there were great lengths more that Jin was capable of, the fine lines carving the depth between Tachikawa’s past and Tachikawa’s present, Jin uncomfortably wedged somewhere along the middle.

In the end, it didn’t matter that Tachikawa hesitated after finally catching Jin off guard at his own game, because Jin must have felt like coming back this time around.

It was neither a victory nor a loss, and so what if their game didn’t end; Tachikawa had long forgotten how it all started but he remembered it started with his own win, standing above the remains of Jin’s trion body for a few seconds before Jin left him like he always did. It didn’t matter because Jin came back the same way he left, looked more alive than he ever did when he was watching Tachikawa fall apart in his hands.

Tachikawa wasn’t about to be the one to concede, but he didn’t believe for a second that Jin hadn’t been waiting for him since before the beginning, that he hadn’t known all along.

#


End file.
